Beer: Reviews & Ratings

330 ml. bottle, Pretty deep and a bit hazy golden colour, with a big head that leaves a compact lace and a cloak on the surface. Smell of tropical fruits, citrus, pine, apricot. Medium body, oily and lively palate, with bubbles playing in your tongue. Taste of tropical fruits, some citrus and caramel, earthy with a dry but with a hint of sweetness finish. (357 characters)

330ml bottle 6,7% Abv. Served lightly chilled in a wine glass. Best Before 21/03/2014

Appearance: Goldings pours a lightly hazed bright golden-orange, topped by a large off white head. The head displays good retention and leaves some nice thick sheets of lacing as it recedes.

Smell: Ah yes, that’s pure Goldings hops – one of the most under-rated hops in my opinion. The nose here seems a lot better and a lot fresher than the other beers in this IPA is Dead pack. Herbal, leafy, English hopes dominate, with light notes of bitter orange peel, miscellaneous citrus notes and an underlying sweetness from honey malt.

Taste: As with the nose, the flavor is not quite as faded as the others in the series. Notes include: Herbal, leafy hops, slightly musty notes, some pithy citrus, orange and some sweet honey notes. There is a reasonable bitterness in the finish, but still nowhere near 75IBUs.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, with a medium-high level of rather smooth carbonation.

Overall: This is easily the best in the latest IPA is Dead series. It helps that I love Goldings hops, but for some reason it also doesn’t seem quite as faded as the rest. (1,163 characters)

One of my preferred choice of hops, I found it nice to have this single hop IPA version at its home country. On tap at BrewDog.Hazy amber color with a one finger head with medium retention.As expected, aroma of herbal citrus English hops, licorice and honey.Flavor of English leafy tea with orange drops, Golding hops, sweet malt, pepper and resins.Dry aftertaste with a long lasting bitterness.Medium to full body with medium carbonation.Interesting IPA, difficult to find this type of single hop. Worth it the experience. (529 characters)

Brewdog "IPA is Dead" take 3 involves the conservative classic stylings of Goldings (not sure of subtype, East Kent?), and sure enough it looks and smells like English beer. This brew pours a dark golden honey color with ample off-white foam, releasing a pleasing potpourri of rich pale and crystal malts, stone fruits, and a floral perfume almost like dandelions or some other yellow weed. Palate reminds me of a bitter or pale ale with decent malt complexity and the peach/apricot fruitiness and dry peppery spice that dry hopping with Goldings can provide. There is toast and burnt sugar, quite a bit of green leaf, and carrot/parsley flavors lurking in the finish, which is earthy bitterness plus the aforementioned floral notes. Makes me remember tasting dandelion milk as a kid. Moderate body and tea-like astringency almost like an Irish red but make no mistake. There is a persistent sweetness throughout that balances the strong hops. Not too bad at all. No frills brew without bells and whistles. This works and avoids the wonkey flavors showing up in its two stablemates, Waimea and Dana. (1,099 characters)

The colour is gold-orange (27 EBC), the liquid sis hazy. The finger thick head quickly sinks down to a thick off-white lid, leaving no lacing.

The smell is a bit chemical with notes of hay, grass and buttery flowers. Some (semi-tart) bitterness, hints of plastic and rubber. Strong candy-like sweetness, hints of chloride.

The taste is bitter, it is more powerful than I had expect. Grass, hay, straw. Buttercups, dandelions and other floral flavours. The aftertaste is smooth with notable alcohol, bitter hops, dandelions and hay. The finish is semi-bitter with even more flowers and a touch of bitter herbs.

The carbonation is medium strong, the small long-lived bubbles are sharp. The liquid is mid-smooth.

More bitterness than expected. Apart from that, this one got the expeted Goldings flavours. (808 characters)

330ml bottle, the last of this neat 4-pack of single-hop offerings, dubbed 'IPA is Dead', in Brewdog fashion, of course.

This beer pours a cloudy, murky medium apricot amber hue, with two fingers of wanly puffy, loosely foamy off-white head, which leaves some loosely webbed lace around the glass as it duly recedes.

It smells like a veritable ESB - not surprisingly, I suppose, given the hop we're dealing with here - pungently leafy, a bit citrusy, and certainly edgy, with a decent supportive caramel-tinged pale malt backbone. The taste is more sassy, almost astringent leafy hops, with a dry rind orange and lemon citrus twinge, a touch of wet pine needles, some faint flinty mineral notes, and an understated, but still prominent pale grainy maltiness.

The bubbles are a tad frothy, but pretty much understated, the body a so-so medium weight, and smooth enough, given the pricks and prods of the heady hop(s). It finishes off-dry, barely, as the malt makes a bit of a comeback, but not enough to overtake the floral, citrusy, leafy hop headliner.

By far the best of this particular lot - the hops actually, um, tasting good? Beyond that, they do represent a familiar beer meme, that of the aforementioned ESB, but one obviously coincidental in nature, as Goldings must be a part of that venerable style (which, by the by, is not the proclaimed IPA here). And even further, everything else just seems to work together, unlike the rest of its single-hop siblings thus far. (1,481 characters)

Sweet with some pine hops and a lot of citrus to start, helped out with some orange peel and and bit of peppery spice. Earthy hop taste to this one but the citrus takes over more towards the middle and the end and there is a tropical fruit flavour as well.

Chewy & medium bodied with a strong citrus tang and a sweet, almost pine like feel that is coupled with strong carbonation. The finish is a slightly bitter and hop filled one.

An improvement on the last IPA is Dead offering, Dana but only a slight step up and still not a great beer really. This one is more fruity and has more citrus that the last but the taste is a basic one. A step in the right direction but still not good. (991 characters)

Pours a noticeably hazed burnished golden colour (interestingly, there has been some considerable difference in the level of clarity in the series), with a filmy top of off-white that stays persistent at the edges, but mediocre otherwise. Lacing is good and the carbonation is fine. Overall, it looks good, but certainly inferior to some of the other ones I've had.

Taste is also good. Slight biting citrus character (surprisingly, I'm getting mandarin on this one—as I've done with others in the series), slightly peppery, with a chewed eucalyptus bite, a little more vegetation and a vaguely medicinal finish. Feel is very smooth, but light, working with the subtle fragrances of the hops.

Very good stuff. If anything, it just underlined that I'm a big fan of EKG—the EKG Mikkeller SHIPA was my pick of that series. I think this is pipped in this series by Waimea (and potentially El Dorado as well), but it has a lot to offer, and it really showcases what an excellent hop Goldings can be. (1,392 characters)

Coming in a slim 330ml brown bottle, not bottle-conditioned; BB 21/03/2014, served mildly chilled in a short-stemmed goblet. Tasted alongside Dana (DN) in the same 2013 series.

Appearance: pours a translucent, bright orangey amber hue with very mild carbonation and a thin sheet of white foamy head.Smell: aromatically orangey notes, sweet citrus, light lychees, and sweet floral esters, against an assertive malt body mainly of English pale malts with a wee touch of barley candy; the hop elements are pleasant but not so… pronounced as the brewery sets out to achieve, as the malt performance seems to outweigh the hoppiness on the balance. A swirl gives rise to a deeper and richer marmalade-ish aroma.Taste: mildly sour-sweet yet otherwise quiet foretaste, lightly earthy, orangey, on top of nicely bitter-sweet pale malts… everything you’d expect from a more… English/British take on the style. Mild tannins as in lightly crushed orange/citrus seeds and aromatic lychee shells (as a result of hop- & malt-elements) pair with moderately bitterness at first, edged by a touch of phenolic earthiness, then the more “serious” bitterness deepens to deliver a truly enjoyable, lingering finish as a true witness to the dry-hopping process.Mouthfeel & Overall: mildly refreshing, medium-plus bodied, less aromatic than DN but bolder and more bitter-hoppy on the palate, the “Goldings” is more like what you’d expect from a more typical take on the style with a traditional hop variety, only that the more rigorous dry-hopping process adds an extra dimension to it. Compared with DN, the enjoyment is just as nice; for a “bitter drinker” like me, I’d never say no to a more pronounced bitterly-hoppy interpretation all in all. (1,751 characters)